Sunday, August 23, 2009

200 Weeks

200 Weeks is a blogger from the UK. The name comes from the date he started his blog. At the time, he was two hundred weeks away from retiring as a police officer. That was in August 2005. Since then, he retired from policing but then was rehired as a dispatcher. He continues to blog daily about many different aspects of law enforcement.

In a post titled "The Biggie," he tackled the subject of drug prohibition. It is a detailed, fact based analysis, and I would encourage you to read it. After reviewing the evidence, he came to this conclusion:

"It all leads up to this really and I can’t pretend to have a definitive answer but I do think that it is a better solution than we have now.

Legalise Drugs.

And I don’t mean open sweetie shops selling them to anyone who wants them, I mean legally regulated and controlled. Policies in Holland, Portugal, Switzerland & Russia are seeing some drugs decriminalised. We already have a system for handing out drugs through pharmacies and doctors where people can get good quality health advice and guidance and don’t need to jack up using shared needles round the back of some derelict crack house.

Take production out of the hands of the drugs barons, produce a product which is not mixed with baking powder or anything else that happens to be lying around, which is as safe as it can be and is of measured quantity so you know how much to take and don’t need to risk an OD."